FOOD & DINING

The latest reviews and listings from New Orleans and South Louisiana

Ellis Lucia / The Times-PicayuneParkway Bakery will be selling their roastbeef po-boys.

If you went to the first New Orleans Po-Boy Preservation Festival last year on Oak Street, you witnessed the rapid depletion of food, fest T-shirts and artists' wares -- and the human gridlock when 10,000 people jammed into three blocks.

"It was yikes!" said Jim Elliott, chairman of the Po-Boy Preservation Festival and Oak Street Association president.

As soon as the festival closed last year, Elliott said, the association, which promotes the historic street's revitalization, began working to make this year's event bigger -- expanded to five blocks, plus the side streets -- and better.

Kathy Anderson / The Times-Picayune
Be sure to take a look at Poppy Tooker's recipe for Peas in roux. The New Orleans native's side dish is perfect for the holidays.

• 'Recipe Swap' forum• Cookbook reviews• Latest food news

This Thanksgiving, we have the best holiday hints and favorite recipes from three great New Orleans cooking teachers! Check out the tips shared by Chiqui Collier, Poppy Tooker and Matt Brewton, and their fabulous recipes for Uncle Frank's oyster dressing, Potato rolls, Stuffed mirlitons, Peas in a roux, Cornbread and Italian sausage dressing and Day after Thanksgiving turkey and sausage gumbo.

Ellis Lucia / The Times-Picayune
At Aunt Sally's butter is stirred into a batter of fresh pralines. When comes to pralines attention to detail and quality ingredients are key.

L.H. wrote recently that her neighbor wanted to send chocolate pralines to her nephew in Iraq for Christmas, but the recipe was lost due to Hurricane Katrina. What she remembers is: 3 cups sugar, 3 cups brown sugar, 1 can evaporated milk, 1 oz. semi-sweet chocolate chips (she's not sure about this), butter and vanilla.

No recipe that uses evaporated milk has arrived, but this one looks good. P.J., who lives in Metairie, found the following in a reproduction of a 1934 cookbook from Hershey's. The recipe calls for light cream, and, in the 1930s, evaporated milk would have been an appropriate substitute.

Ellias Lucia / The Times-Picayune
Who doesn't love a glass of wine and some cheese? In this week's Cooking Creole Marcelle Bienvenu talks cheese.

I fell in love with cheese when I was about 5 years old. My mother was making macaroni and cheese to go with fried catfish. She cut off a chunk of Velveeta and dropped it into my chubby palm. I rolled it around my mouth, allowing it to melt on my tongue. Yum! I asked for another piece. I was smitten.

Whenever I found Velveeta in the refrigerator, I begged Mama to give me a few pieces. Sometimes I made cracker and cheese sandwiches, but more often than not I ate it right off the block!

From then on, I happily skipped down the cheese path, eating any kind of cheese that came my way. American cheese and fried ham sandwiches were a favorite after-school snack. Sometimes I cut small pieces of cheddar and tucked them into a cone of French bread drizzled with cane syrup. Later in life, I moved on to cheese (lots of it) and pepperoni pizzas, pasta with cheese, quiches made with Swiss cheese and spinach, steamed vegetables topped with grated Parmesan, and my all-time favorite: thick slices of tomatoes topped with chunks of mozzarella.

From Kim Severson at the New York Times comes this recipe for Brussels sprouts with mustard, apples and caraway. For those of you who eat Brussels sprouts only on the holiday -- why not dress them up a bit?

Late last week, Chef Emeril Lagasse helped dedicate the Emeril's Culinary Center at St. Michael Special School. The new center will serve as a multi-use space for St. Michael's academic, social and vocational curriculum and provides a bright new learning kitchen designed for accessible teaching.

If its near Thanksgiving, the Butterball Turkey Talk-Line can't be far away. The website www.butterball.com has new features this year, including
calculators to figure how much turkey to buy and serve, how-to videos and lots of recipes.

For help, you can e-mail talkline@butterball.com at any time, or, call 1.800.BUTTERBALL,
weekdays, 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. CST.